This volume is a comprehensive grammar of the Turkish language, suitable both for students of the Turkish language and linguistic scholars. It explores all aspects of Turkish, from basic pronunciation to sentence structure and advanced topics such as relative and embedded clauses.

A complete reference guide to modern Turkish grammar, this work presents a full and accessible description of the language, concentrating on the real patterns of use.

This volume is a comprehensive grammar of the Turkish language, suitable both for students of the Turkish language and linguistic scholars. Gerjan van Schaaik draws on sound linguistic research and an extensive corpus of real-life data, alongside more than twenty years of feedback from university classrooms, to provide the most complete, up-to-date, and practically useful survey of the Turkish language ever compiled. Following an introduction that provides background information on the Turkic languages and an overview of the linguistic terminology adopted in the volume, the first part of the book explores the fundamentals of Turkish spelling and pronunciation. Parts II and III explore the noun phrase and adjuncts and modifiers, respectively, while Parts IV and V examine the verbal system and sentence structure. These first five parts together represent a valuable overview of the fundamentals of Turkish grammar. Part VI provides an account of the ways in which new words are constructed on the basis of existing material, and constitutes a bridge to the more advanced matter treated in parts VII and VIII, including relative clauses, subordination, embedded clauses, clausal complements and the finer points of the verbal system. The work will be accompanied by a companion website that will provide exercises to accompany each part.

First published in 2010. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This is the first full account of the transformation of Ottoman Turkish into modern Turkish. It is based on the author's knowledge, experience and continuing study of the language, history, and people of Turkey. That transformation of the Turkish language is probably the most thorough-going piece of linguistics engineering in history. Its prelude came in 1928, when the Arabo-Persian alphabet was outlawed and replaced by the Latin alphabet. It began in earnest in 1930 when Ataturk declared: Turkish is one of the richest of languages. It needs only to be used with discrimination. The Turkish nation, which is well able to protect its territory and its sublime independence, must also liberate its language from the yoke of foreign languages. A government-sponsored campaign was waged to replace words of Arabic or Persian origin by words collected from popular speech, or resurrected from ancient texts, or coined from native roots and suffixes. The snag - identified by the author as one element in the catastrophic aspect of the reform - was that when these sources failed to provide the needed words, the reformers simply invented them. The reform was central to the young republic's aspiration to be western and secular, but it did not please those who remained wedded to their mother tongue or to the Islamic past. The controversy is by no means over, but Ottoman Turkish is dead. Professor Lewis both acquaints the general reader with the often bizarre, sometimes tragicomic but never dull story of the reform, and provides a lively and incisive account for students of Turkish and the relations between culture, politics and language with some stimulating reading. The author draws on his own wide experience of Turkey and his personal knowledge of many of the leading actors. The general reader will not be at a disadvantage, because no Turkish word or quotation has been left untranslated. This book is important for the light it throws on twentieth-century Turkish politics and society, as much as it is for the study of linguistic change. It is not only scholarly and accessible; it is also an extremely good read.

NEW: The Routledge Intermediate Turkish Reader APP is now available on Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.oxola.turkishreader The Routledge Intermediate Turkish Reader has been specially designed for intermediate and advanced learners of Turkish and comprises a broad selection of graded readings. Written by prominent Turkish academics and journalists, the collection of modern texts presented here have been carefully selected to ensure students receive maximum exposure to current political and cultural issues related to Turkey; from gender, ethnicity, religion and social class through to arts and history. Each reading is fully supported by: an introduction written by an expert in the related field a vocabulary list with English translation and vocabulary in context short grammar explanations of any difficult structures encountered in the text comprehension questions directly text related, language exercises and subject specific questions to generate class-discussion and essay writing in Turkish a key to comprehension questions and language exercises a list of suggested further reading (online support). Suitable for both class use and independent study, The Routledge Intermediate Turkish Reader is an essential tool for increasing language proficiency and enriching the learners’ socio-cultural knowledge of Turkey. Companion website available at http://www.senelsymons.co.uk/books/ Introductions in English by: Prof. Dr. E. Fuat Keyman, Koç University, Prof. Dr. Ümit Cizre, Bilkent University, Dr. Can Dündar, journalist, writer, columnist, director, Dr. Martin Stokes, Oxford University, Prof. Dr. Cemil Koçak, Sabancı University, Prof. Dr. Fatih Selami Mahmutoğlu, İstanbul University, Prof. Dr. Fatma Gök, Boğaziçi University, Prof. Dr. Dilek Cindoğlu, Bilkent University, Prof. Dr. Yıldız Silier, Boğaziçi University, Prof. Dr. Ayşegül Kibaroğlu, Middle East Technical University, Prof. Dr. Oya Pancaroğlu, Boğaziçi University, Prof. Dr. Meliz Ergin, Koç University, Prof. Dr. Özlem Tür, Middle East Technical University, Prof. Dr. Ayşe Uyduranoğlu, Bilgi University, Prof. Dr. Zeynep Gambetti, Boğaziçi University, Prof. Dr. Saime Özçürümez, Bilkent University, Prof. Dr. Kürşad Ertuğrul, Middle East Technical University, Dr. Selin Akyüz-Şaşmaz, Bilkent University. The articles in Turkish by: Prof. Dr. Murat Belge, Bilgi University, Prof. Dr. Orhan Tekelioğlu, Bahçeşehir University, Prof. Dr. E. Fuat Keyman, Koç University, Murat Yetkin, journalist, columnist, lecturer, Radikal, Prof. Dr. Türker Alkan, Çankaya University, Prof. Dr. Baskın Oran, Ankara University, Prof. Dr. Hakan Hakeri, Ondokuz Mayıs University; Cem Erciyes, journalist, Radikal, Dr. Fikret Bila, journalist, columnist, Milliyet, Prof. Dr. Şahin Alpay, Bahçeşehir University, Prof. Dr. Mümtaz‘er Türköne, Gazi University, Prof. Dr. Mahnaz Gümrükçüoğlu, Sakarya University, Dr. Ali Bayramoğlu, journalist, Yeni Şafak, Prof. Dr. Hakkı Uyar, Dokuz Eylül University, Ayşe Hür, historian, journalist, columnist, Taraf.

A concise introduction to Turkish grammar, designed specifically for English-speaking students and professionals.